Author
Topic: The Last Wizards (Read 2839 times)

"What great minds lie in the dust! What gorgeous souls have vanished into the buried ages; what marvellous creatures are lost past the remotest memory … Nevermore will there be the like; now in the last fleeting moments, humanity festers rich as rotten fruit. Rather than master and overpower our world, our highest aim is to cheat it through sorcery."

Earth . . . A dim place, ancient beyond knowledge . . . Ages of rain and wind have beaten and rounded the granite, and the sun is red and feeble . . . A million cities of lifted towers, have fallen to dust. In place of the old peoples a few thousand strange souls live. There is evil on Earth . . . Earth is dying . . .

...Only these wretched vile sorcerers remain.

In betwixt the twisted towers and myriad spires of Great Moltholom there stands one particularly obnoxious structure of note. The bulbous dome that shines a thousand colors, the headquarters of the Tourmaline Brotherhood, a society of wizards, created with only two purposes in mind. The first being for the mutual study and trade of the "Hundred Known Spells" and the trafficking and trading of old folios, mysterious artifacts, and summoned beings. The second being a peace pact, a means of keeping these same odious guild wizards from stealing each other's magicks, or worse, tearing each other to shreds. The Tourmaline Laws are taken quite seriously by all members, for if a wizard is found to have broken the pact in some way, the other wizards of the Tourmaline Brotherhood will immediately combine forces and enact contingency magicks to destroy the guilty party.

None of this prevents said wizards from tirelessly searching for loop holes in the Tourmaline Laws however, to take advantage of their fellows.

And so it goes.

Let us look in upon three such sorcerers. They could not be any different from one another, yet their fates shall soon entwine...

PoisonAlchemist: Man Muro, you boost my confidence and then you just go crush it with a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Pariah: Don't tell him things like that, if his head gets any bigger he'll float off like a weather ballon :p

The World's Teats Mountains are so old a range, that they have devolved from epic, jagged peaks to rounded, smooth, high hills, resembling their appellation more and more over the millennia. The Teats rise above (barely) the western end of a dark forbidding forest of twisted pines.

Atop one such teat, perches an unadorned monastery, the demesne of one, Ikela the Lawful, an archmage as insufferable as some of his more "chaotic" cohorts of the infamous Tourmaline Brotherhood.

Griffons circle above the monastery like crows, and if one were to sit astride one of these hybrid beasts in mid-air, one could spy to the south, the fetid, brown river called the Skaum, snaking its way out of the darkness of the unnamed forest, and proceeding south to a vast, featureless flatland, littered with bleached bone shards.

An eerily quiet place are these empty fields, only wind and the crunching of bone underfoot breaks the silence.

A few leagues further south and one comes face to face with a truly disturbing sight, the Dragons Graveyard. Gigantic rib cages of unknown beasts form archways dozens of feet overhead, turning from a field to a forest of bone.

Within this place where behemoths and leviathans came to die all those years ago, stands the grand guignol fortress of one Thangirion Zombiel. The melancholy Necrope, whom the lastlanders consider a god, the Great Belphegor. 'Ware the impaled, undead dragon which guards his demesne.

If one avoids this grotesque place (as one certainly should) and continues south two dozen leagues, the traveler will reach the fetid Throbbing Bogs and its many nightmares, but first they will come across oldest inhabitable city there ever was or will be...Old Place.

And deep beneath the crumbling stones, deeper still than the city's ancient sewers and catacombs, one will find the dismal abode of one, Thalonin the Pestilential, with his bubbling vats, and steam-pumping machines, and magickal prisons filled with his many miserable imprisoned victims.

And so you see, our three wizard lairs lie not all too far from each other, despite the foreboding terrain which separates them.

Now we will take a closer look (from a safe distance) and peek at their vile, day-to-day doings...

PoisonAlchemist: Man Muro, you boost my confidence and then you just go crush it with a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Pariah: Don't tell him things like that, if his head gets any bigger he'll float off like a weather ballon :p

Thalonin stepped away from his crystal, muttering and rolling his eyes. “Exchange spells he says. Bah. I’ll exchange spells with him, and he wouldn’t like it one bit. Icky indeed.” He drew a large, bizarrely colored beetle from one of his many pockets, really too large have come from that pocket. “No, he wouldn’t, would he Gerich?” he said while stroking its carapace.

Deeper down into his dwelling, he opened and entered a massive door, heavily protected by all manner of warding spells, including those that would convert intruders into wiggling piles of worms.

Here, dozens of rooms were gnawed into the bones of the earth. He entered one and a low moan from the rooms lone occupant greeted him. If it were stronger it might have sounded defiant.

“Have you seen the error of your ways yet, Murnal? Have you figured out how to unbreak what you have broken? No? Then abide while you ponder this.” Thalonin strode away from the wretch, manacled, bound, and tied to a strange machine that seemed to pulse weakly.

To the next chamber he barely stuck his head in.“Quadoth! Yes, you. Do you have the answer? Need I bring back your little friends to spur your memory? No. Then get to it. You don’t have forever. None of of us do!”

Thalonin walked further on. This room had a stall with several Oasts. He made no attempt to converse with them, only noting that sufficient feed was available to them. They too were attached to strange machines.

He completed his rounds, satisfied that all was in order. None of his ‘friends’ were on death’s door, nor seemed to be struggling effectively. He was being merciful. He could have simply slain them, for they did transgress across that line, but no, now they would get to see the end of the world. Even if it was from deep inside the earth. And, because they would, so would he.

At this point, he made his way back up to his library. This room too was protected by a heavily ensorcelled door - and a second one beyond besides. The walls, floor and ceiling were also protected from spells and scrying, with layers of metals, stones and runed surfaces to block teleportation, planar incursions and even simple mining. For the library was his treasure.

“Kethathez! The Book of Ogrum’s Grace if you will!’ he ordered as he found his overstuffed chair near the illusionary fireplace. Not even a spark was allowed in here, so Thalonin made due with the illusionary heat the illusionary fire provided. A moment later, and a huge, black, spider-thing presented Thalonin with the grimoire.

Of the Malfeasant Three, The Lawful Ikela, was the first to hear of the event. After all, it was easier to get a message delivered to an accessible monastery, rather than a dragon-flame-spewing fortress, or a subterranean lair so deep, as to be unvisitable altogether.

Kasak, Ikela's major domo, silently strode toward his master, and wordlessly handed him the gilded scroll.

It read;

"Greetings Most Puissant Purveyor of Law and Order, the Griffin-Lord of the Bulbous Teats! Hoping your monotonous monks are as docile as ever! The Vainglorious Vulvaturo, Master of the Excellent Prismatic Spray and Many Other Such Fine Spells would be overfilled with joy and puerile pride if you deign join him and his many fantastic friends, including five fabulous fellows of our own Tourmaline Brotherhood, for a celebratory fete of no small attention. Needless to say, I have uncovered a new spell, and shall share it with my own beloved brethren should they attend. The event will be held, and you will appreciate this, on the Day of Locusts, when the "Lawgiver" streaks his way across the night skies, glowing purple."

It went on (and on) but its point was long made. In a fortnight, the mighty Ikela (or Icky, depending on which monk you'd ask), was being invited to the grand birthday party of a fellow mage, with a dangling carrot besides. A new spell promised. And those were so rare these days!

PoisonAlchemist: Man Muro, you boost my confidence and then you just go crush it with a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.Pariah: Don't tell him things like that, if his head gets any bigger he'll float off like a weather ballon :p

The Major Domo always reads his masters mail, it is a good way to avoid broken bonws. His master makes much pretense of the monks all being eaqual with him, but that is far from the truth. Ikela soundlessly reads the note and becomes filled with one of his notorious rages. "Griffon" is the single word he croaks out from his grim lips.

Mounting the griffon he soon comes upon that which he was seeking, one of the many barbarian tribes of the World Teats. He brings the griffon down harshly as a shout arises from the mighty hewed barbarians. Casting " Stone Fist" from his precious Ioun stones Ikela moves amung the barbarians like a storm, beating the entire "lawless bunch" to piles of broken bones and wailing children. The mighty rage subsides as he bashes the ribs of the last barbarian female.The mighty wizard muses on the note a last time.

"A New Spell?" "Hruph" My own laboratories yield nothing on my several lines of research. "How could that feeble poser come up with a new spell?"' And offer it like we were beggars at his court! Ikela mounted the unnamed gryphon and sought the solace of pummeling more barbarians.......

After a restful day, Ikela returns to the abbey at dusk, Where he squares off against 3 monks with his magic off. The monks take full advantage of the situation to give Ikela a fine beating, after which, I kela spreads all the damage over all the monks and retires for the night just before sunset, with a thin smile on his face.

Thangirion regarded the missive from the Brotherhood skeptically. In his youth, beforeburying himself in his tomb he had heard word of such a venture, and had considered it foolish. Perhaps not if it were the last redoubt of magi. Their offerings of a new spell was laughable. Once, there had been more spells than a man could count in a lifetime, now there were just a hundred left. She had loved the royal fetes, with dancing and displays of valour, magic, poetry, and music. He would attend.

He summoned his consort, a golem made of gold with eyes of adamant and bade her to show him she could dance in the proper fashion, while his valets attended his formal dress.

WE CAN KILL THEM ALL Belphegor thundered.

we will not harm them unless they seek to harm us Zomiel countered.

Thangirion compused himself and made preparation to leave the Graveyard of Dragons. He raised more barghests, undead hounds made of human and wolf corpses and sent them to patrol. His dullahans were gird in their funeral iron and ready to butcher anything with blood or pulse that ventured too close. Finally, he bade his three mummified sorcereress daughters, Hellborre, Nightshade, and Hemlock to guard the demense with their very existence.

It was a difficult endeavour indeed to get a note to Thalonin. There were several middlemen in the process, some of which were something _other_ then men. Ardid the messenger shivered as he returned to his village, coin in hand. It would be a long time before he forgot that image..

Thalonin examined the note - a new spell? Interesting. It seemed Vulvaturo’s well had not gone completely dry. He would do well to see what line he had researched, even if he had to subject himself to the others. The Day of Locusts. An odd choice - one that would disrupt some of Thalonin’s plans for that day. Perhaps not an odd choice at all? What _was_ he planning? Surely it was not just to show off his new spell. Ah, a birthday. So random chance dictated by crude intercourse uncounted - not quite uncounted - years past? Mind you, the date was appropriate for Vulvaturo.

So, that ritual would fall to one of the Apprentices. He had best do a good job of it. The last time it failed it was weeks clearing out the last of the vermin.

Thalonin retired to his study - he would need to take time to craft a proper visage for the event. It had been some time since he had exercised that particular art...

Ikela spends the remaining days , training with his monks and thinkiing of which spells he will memorize. It's not that he is prepared for trouble, he is seeking it. He hones the monks to their peak of damage absorbion and sin eating, wondering why if his host planned any miscief he would have set it on one of the most auspituos days for Ikela.

Considering the privey situation, he carefully prepares his artifical private parts, used solely for elimination and show. Many of the Tourmaline were aware of his self mutilatzation but decline to show that knowlege out of very smart discresion.

He would need to ponder long and hard on his spells, for the portents for trouble surrounded him